e of fun to lead them into
rather questionable undertakings, and I do not think their neighbours
altogether appreciated the many jokes and escapades with which they
sought to enliven the holidays.

There resided in the village High Street a certain elderly bachelor, a
retired sea-captain, of somewhat autocratic manners and a very great
idea of his own importance. Dick and George had once ventured into his
garden in quest of a runaway puppy, and had been met with such a storm
of wrath from the fiery old gentleman, who threatened to prosecute them
for trespassing, that they had carried on a kind of feud with him ever
since. On the captain's side, I have no doubt, there were many
reasonable grounds of complaint, but the boys, on the other hand,
considered themselves to have just cause of grievance. Their enemy had
been seen deliberately to wipe off the treacling mixture which they had
smeared upon the trees to attract moths, though the said trees were
situated on the public highway, and not on his private property; he had
put an impassable fence of barbed wire round the particular field where
specimens of the Clifden Blue might occasionally be captured, and he had
clipped his brambly hedge, allowing the prickles purposely to fall and
remain in the cinder-path below, though he knew it was the short cut by
which they bicycled from Marshlands to the railway-station.

"Hoped we should puncture our tyres, no doubt!" said Dick indignantly.
"By sheer good luck I saw them in time, and we carried our machines the
whole length of the lane. But it was a sneaking trick to play, and we'll
be even with him. We owe him a good long score now, and I have it in my
mind to just jolly well pay him out."

Needless to say, neither Mr. nor Mrs. Winstanley were aware of these
fell designs against old Captain Vernon, with whom they had always
managed to keep on excellent terms of neighbourly good-will, and,
knowing full well that their schemes would be promptly forbidden if they
ventured to divulge them, the boys seized the opportunity when "the
mater" and "the governor" were out at a dinner-party to carry into
execution their plan of revenge.

Edward declined altogether to be a party to the deed.

"Beastly bad form, I call it!" he yawned. "You don't catch me leaving a
decent arm-chair to go ragging an antiquated old fossil of a
sea-captain. As for you two girls, I suppose you can do as you like, but
don't let the mater catch you at it, that'